Daughter has the whole family blocked on her Instagram

[tennismum17]

(sorry if my English is bad it's my second) My daughter is 11 years old and in year 7. She, like all my other children, has an Instagram and a SnapChat account. ( I agreed to having all my children have Instagram as long as they use the 'private' feature ).
Recently, it has come to my attention that I had been blocked :(. I found out because I got suspicious that I could not see any of her pictures on my feed - I asked her if she had deleted her account and she said no. She said that she just didn't feel like posting anymore.
I shrugged it off at first but then I noticed that when my youngest son(8) was looking at her profile there were new pictures that I had not seen before. I thought it was just a glitch so I went to her profile and it said 'user not found'. My oldest son(15) said that it meant that I'd been blocked 😢.
I confronted her about this and she got upset; she said it was normal for a girl her age to have privacy and that all of her friends had their parents blocked.
My oldest son came to me and said that he'd been blocked by her too, so had my oldest daughter(12). I asked my husband if he could see her pictures and he said no.
So now the only family member that wasn't blocked was the youngest. I asked him to show me whenever she posted a new picture and he did. He also showed me her Instagram stories and there was nothing too strange - she was posting the same kinda stuff she posted before I was blocked. 🤔
When she found out about the youngest showing me the posts she got angry with him and blocked him too.
So... right now I'm don't know what to do because I have no way of seeing what she is posting. I'm know that she is not a dirty girl she would not post anything inappropriate, swearing or anything like that BUT I'd still like to be able to see what she posts. I can also see where she is coming from and I DO think that my children deserve privacy. I just want to find some sort of middle-ground.

So AIBU if I expect my 11 year old daughter to keep me unblocked on all her social media?

P.S: I also need to see their posts to see the comments underneath, I want to make sure there is nothing mean being said.

My youngesrt had a FB account when she was 7 and just added friends from primary school.I think she had security settings high.What i found horrifying was that strangers could and often did message something innocuous like 'hello there little girl' I guess trying to draw her into conversation

You think she had security settings high?

I find it 'horrifying' that you allowed your 7yo child to have a social media account, what on earth were you thinking?

Remove her technology until she is mature enough to follow the house rules and understand the dangers of social media.

www.thinkuknow.co.uk/11_13/Need-advice/

www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/

You really need to get a grip on this.

I cannot see how an 8 yr old needs unfettered net access or sm accounts AT ALL.

My dd is now 17, the rule I had was while I paid for the phone I get unchecked access, until she was 16 she had to have me on her sm (I didn't always check it but kept an eye).

Over the years there's been discussions on appropriate posting etc one of her "friends" was bullying at one point - they're no longer friends.

No access/inappropriate use = device gone

How long for depended on the infringement.

Now she's older she sees things from a different perspective especially when she sees friends younger siblings posting naively (she tells the friends if they don't know).

You're the adult, parent AND you're paying for the phone.

Take back control - and don't buy the "everyone's doing it" crap.

Gosh who'd have thunk that letting a 7 yr old DC have access to social media that they aren't meant to have until age 13 would cause any problems .

Look some of us make mistakes. We realised that DS had access to talk to anyone on his x-box once we heard him doing it age 8. Bad mistake - but totally ours to own - no point being annoyed at the creators of these things when they actually have sensible age limits in place that you chose to ignore.

If this was my daughter she would lose the account and her phone/devise. Mine has known from the outset that the condition of her having access is that I am not only a friend, but also have her log in details for her accounts. I check periodically and randomly.

I told her if she can't accept those conditions, she isn't mature enough for social media. Privacy can be a dangerous thing. And people thrive on kids keeping secrets from their parents.

medium.com/@anastasiabasilcunningham/porn-is-not-the-worst-thing-on-musical-ly-5df07ab842af

This is a very good article on why we should be concerned about the effect of social media on our children.

So AIBU if I expect my 11 year old daughter to keep me unblocked on all her social media?

YABVU to let an 8 and 11 year old have any social media at all. Are you mad?

@MrsHathaway - I did not know about the IG messages disappearing after the convo has been left! That poster is a bit misleading. I just checked this with my daughter. If you simply stop adding to the conversation, you can go back in and see all the messages. You have to physically press "leave conversation" to lose access to all messages. That poster makes it sounds like it deletes all PMs once you stop conversing.

This is simple. You tell her to deactivate her account until she abides to your rules

You should be taking her phone from her every night to look through it. It may seem like a massive breach of privacy but she is eleven, not 18. You have a duty to keep her safe and I would be quite suspicious of her blocking her entire family if I’m honest. It’s probable there’s nothing malignant occurring and she’s just being a typical hormonal tween but I wouldn’t be ignorant to the fact social media is essentially paedophile heaven. All it takes is for her to start messaging a ‘young boy’, tell him where she lives or goes to school and et voila.

You are the adult, take control.

If this was me, DD would be loading the phone entirely for a while and then having it back with the apps deleted. If you permit her to continue with instagram is it with the caveat that she has you all as followers and you have all passwords.

I am allergic to the English isn't the OP's first language as an excuse to post idiotic things like using phrases "dirty girl".
This has nothing to do with someone's mother tongue or the lack of language skills. It's judgmental and moralistic and it looks ridiculous,

I think this a very judgmental and presumptuous comment.

I have a close friend who is from SE Asian country and she and her fellow countrywomen often use use the turn of phrase that someone is a "dirty monkey" or a "dirty girl" of a "dirty boy" and it really isn't anything more than a lost in translation moment. It is all about their mother tongue.

There is nothing to suggest that this isn't the case here so I think it would be polite to give the OP the benefit of the doubt before jumping in with the hob nail boot to the head.

OP - I agree that you need to be firm with your daughter tell her that if she doesn't unblock you then she doesn't have her phone.

I think the problem with a lot of social media and kids on social media, is that they see how many friends they've got as a badge of honour. The number of likes their posts get is a competition. So they'll add anyone in order to get their numbers up an appear more popular. They don't care about the dangers, or they don't fully understand them in the first place.

Its our responsibility as parents to make sure they are as aware as possible and to help them.

she should not have instagram and it's shocking that you allow your 8 year old on it!

Re the privacy argument - it's SOCIAL media so it's not private and there's no expectation of privacy, they're sharing their thoughts, comments, pics with others not like a diary at all. In addition the net is FAR from private. Even with the poorly named "privacy settings" set "high".

And safety trumps embarrassment anyway.

If this was me as the adult here she would lose the phone completely, and any computer time would be watched over by an adult at all times.

If she really needed a phone she would have to put up with a basic one that she can only text or call on no access to the internet.

YOU ARE THE ADULT HERE, YOU HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OVER THE CHILD PHONE.

Agree with other posters that she lets you have full access or you confiscate the phone. You are the grownup here!

Just to throw this into the mix. You can now spy privately on anyone so long as you load this app onto their phone.

www.mspy.com/

You are the adult, you need access to what she is posting to safeguard her. Either take the phone away or get her to give you access. She is too young for instagram, etc. She is meant to be 13.

Two of my children have a phone (11 + 13) they know that at any time I may go on the phone to check what they are doing. I have done this, and found my youngest was being bullied and my eldest was sending inappropriate messages. Both situations were dealt with quickly because I viewed their phone.

You should be taking her phone from her every night to look through it.

Do read up more about modern SM before you assume this is enough. Lots of apps can disappear messages as soon as they are read, or as soon as a chatter goes offline. You could miss everything even by checking daily.

She’d lose the phone if she was mine. The sneaking, the lying, and the attitude combined show she’s not ready for a smartphone. Give her a brick and let her crack on.

If you simply stop adding to the conversation, you can go back in and see all the messages. You have to physically press "leave conversation" to lose access to all messages

This is good news (thanks for clarifying) but a child who deliberately blocks her mother from seeing her SM account is certainly savvy enough to leave conversations!

No way would my children have social media accounts of any kind without me being their friend and knowing their passwords.

You should be taking her phone from her every night to look through it.

Do read up more about modern SM before you assume this is enough. Lots of apps can disappear messages as soon as they are read, or as soon as a chatter goes offline. You could miss everything even by checking daily.

Don't assume that their Internet History is all that they browse. Many kids will know to use Private Browsing for porn.

Snapchat is the worst for people sending inappropriate pictures. You should check that her Snaps aren't visible to everyone. There is feature called our story and it allows anyone in the world to view your content.